Tahir, S. (n.d.). An ember in the ashes: A novel.

pages 100 - End

List of named characters: 

• Laia
• Elias Veturius
• Helene Aquilla
• Kerin Verturia
• Commandant
• Falconius Barrius
• Marcus Farrar
• Cook
• Sana
• Farris Candelan
• Ennis Madelus
• Tristas Equitius
• Leander Vissan
• Demetrius Galarius
• Auger Cain
• Keenan
• Darin
• Spiro Tuluman
• Grandfather Quin Veturius
• Zak Farrar
• Izzi
• Mazen

 Tahir, S. (n.d.). An ember in the ashes: A novel.

pgs 1-60

Which character's storyline is the best? 

Argument:I will argue that of the two different story-lines, Elias' is more interesting and better told than Laia's (so far). 

Claim 1: Elias' timeline has better writing
Evidence: The scene where Elias (and reader) meet the leader of the Martials/Masks, the description of the courtyard and how "it was so quiet that you could hear a teardrop fall"
Warrant: Betting writing draws people in and more effectively illustrates the narrative

Claim 2: Elias has (thus far) been characterized better and more thoroughly than Laia. 
Evidence: Because the opening chapters for Elias has dealt mostly within his castle walls, and mundane duties, the reader has had more time inside of Elias' head because of her secure location and not needing to run and scramble around the city like Laia. 
Warrant: Better/More characterization give readers more insight into the characters views, world, and emotions, therefore creating a stronger attachment with the reader

Claim 3: While Laia has unanswered questions in her storyline, Elias' unanswered questions more obviously follow the traditional Hero's Journey--dealing with fate, and a promise of adventure. 
Evidence: Elias is high-born and already a part of a secretive and elite order, whereas Laia is still searching for the Resistance and has no evidence of how to join them or even what to do once she finds them. 
Evidence: Elias has his prophecy told by the Augers and they mention his epic journey that he is soon to venture forth on, as well as his famous destiny that he will soon fulfill. 
Warrant: Characters who are engaged in adventure connected to conventional fantasy tropes are more easily empathized with and give the reader greater interest in their future.

Counterclaim: You are just keen to Elias because of his gender and more easily relate to male characters.
Rebuttal: I actually read the text assuming that both Elias and Laia were female, already a fan of Elias despite realizing his gender at the undressing scene around pg. 40 or so.

Green, J. (n.d.). The Fault in our Stars.

If you were a teacher, would you want to share this work with your students?

                                          Why or why not?

     Absolutely! In fact, I've already convinced two of my intern-students to read it, and have been having a conversation with two other ones about John Greene's body of work (They have read Paper Towns, I haven't yet). I'm always worried that I get too excited about a certain book or author, then end up recommending it to the wrong person, or recommend it to a struggling reader--which in turn on bothers them and isolates them more from the reading world. This is yet another reason why it's so important to know your students. While I think that this is definitely a work to share with students--it's made for them--I would just make sure, perhaps with my teacher overriding powers (if a book pass didn't work) that they right students get the right text. And while I think that nearly every type of person can get something from, and learn to appreciate this book, with adolescents, it may not be the right book at the right time. With young readers and struggling readers, you only have so many shots in their (reading) zone of proximal development to nourish the seeds of reading.
     I would definitely not teach this text as a stand-alone text; it would serve most certainly as a companion-text. I'm teaching R&J later in Internship B, so hopefully I can get a Book club set up and throw this one in there for the smarties and book-worms. 

Green, J. (n.d.). The Fault in our Stars.

What is my favorite part of this book (and why I ultimately recommend it to everyone)?

So my answer to this first hit me when actually Augustus, the male love interest of the main character (who is 17) casually makes a reference to Waiting For Godot in passing conversational. The main character is incredibly well made and well written (so are the majority of youths in this novel--a stark contrast to the adults...but that's for another time, let's focus on Hazel). Hazel has ideas that are bigger than her and she actively thinks about them. Hazel has premature wisdom.  Her mind rarely succumbs to futility.  She ponders the metaphysical, as well as why scrambled eggs have been relegated to breakfast.  Frequently, her monologue includes hyperaware things that we should all stop and consider, like:    
 -"Funerals, I had decided, are for the living."    
 - "suffice it to say that the existence of broccoli does not in any way affect the taste of chocolate" (in response to          the sentiment Without pain, how could we know joy?)    
 - "I was thinking about the word handle and all the unholdable things that get handled."
Funny enough, the first connection I made from this is the dialogue and back and forth that wakes part on Gilmore Girls, the television show. I was turned off by how unrealistically quick, witty, and well educated this supposedly average high school girl was. Perhaps, I only allow it within text. Hmm
Well. I'm almost done and ready to cry--i've been preparing this whole book.
This is an amazingly well told tale of many relatable human emotions and feelings.

Huxley, A. (1946). Brave new world. New York: Harper & Bros.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
So, i'm quite upset because I left my book in my CT's room over the weekend and I had carefully highlighted and made notes in the margins of things to discuss, so i'm going off script. 

What kind of person do you feel the author is? What makes you feel this way?
     I know it's a very popular (and boring) method of teaching literature to teach first through a biographical lens by explaining the life and times of the text's author before jumping into a book--this is great for shakespeare is you want to bore students to death before they even start reading. This can be useful for certain historical pieces, adapting the theory of New Historical Criticism, though i suppose it's still all about how you teach it. I digress, I have honestly never researched Huxley before, nor do I know anything about his life despite his best works. just speculating here, but I would assume that perhaps in his late 1800s/early 1900s lifespan that he was perhaps negatively influenced by some sort of technological aspect. The Model T automobile obviously played a role in Brave New World. While I'm unsure if it was negative, experiencing a medical or scientific mishap, or he was simply just fascination at the changing of the times after the industrial revolution and the automation that came with it, he definitely felt some type of way. 
     I might also speculate about his love life, because why not? the character of Lenina Crowe is intriguingly unorthodox: she defies her culture’s conventions by dating one man exclusively, is drawn to Bernard, and is violently enthralled with John. Lenina is unable to share Bernard’s troubles or to understand John's value system. Lenina exclusively relates through sex alone. Another similar female character (John's mother i believe), Linda also is seen as morally tainted because of promiscuity. While this can easily be read with a feminist lens, putting Huxley in the fedora-friend-zone group, perhaps Huxley was simply painting the mentality of his time period-the religions and customs that oppressed women in the early 1900s. 
     I would also venture to assume that Huxley was a well-read scholar. All of this not based on the incredibly complex and, i'm assuming purposefully choppy narration and dialogue that help to mimic the characters' disconnectedness and feeling of neutrality, but specifically the detail of John very heavy-handedly being known for his ability to recite Shakespeare quotes by heart. This supposedly demonstrating that the western philosophies of that era are what equate to correct and just living according the Huxley. Perhaps he was just finding a way to make known all the Shakespeare he had memorized over the years himself--typical English guys.

Huxley, A. (1946). Brave new world. New York: Harper & Bros.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley:

What do you feel is the most important word, phrase, passage, or paragraph in this work? Explain why it is important. 

     So, it may not be the most important, but this week I want to share some of my favorite little quotes and shocking lines. "He put away the soma bottle, and taking our a packer of sex-hormone chewing-gum, stuffed a plug into his cheek and walked slowly away towards the hangers, ruminating." So I can't remember, nor clearly tell what this novel's full take on sexuality is. I'm inclined to think that because it is such and open and rampant part of Huxley's society that, along with the class separation and everything else, Huxley is attempting to paint promiscuity in a negative light. This is disheartening to me as I feel the opposite. I feel that modern society has most definitely evolved to include a large amount of material in this text, but perhaps not all of it is bad. Obviously the government's usage of sex is troublesome--the orgies to maintain control and blindness, but whether Huxley was truly anti-sex is tbd. 
     It would interesting having this conversation with the right, mature class. The great thing when teaching topics that tend to divide the class is that as a teacher, you never really have to fully weigh down on a specific side--you can let the students battle it out after prodding them. It would definitely be difficult to teach this text without spending a fair amount of time on the issue of sex/society's pleasure. But I assume that you can teach this entirely with a Marxist lens or something of the like, but at the risk of overteaching I would still want to introduce the different lens and interpretations; Brave New World is just so dense and able to be unpacked from so many different angles.
     The sex-hormone chewing-gum slays me. While it's not marketed or called the same thing, we definitely sell similar products nowadays. Caffeine chewing gum, "Horny Goat Weed", whatever else you can find at the nearest convenience store. It would be fun to focus on the little details of their society, like these products and drugs, and start off having the class find and compare them to things in their own life. I like the idea of ending the process by having students create their own dystopian product, with a short ad campaign or poster to present to the class.

Huxley, A. (1946). Brave new world. New York: Harper & Bros.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley:

This week i've made it about 25% into this classic, though I did have the chance to read it in high school.

If i were a teacher, would i share this would my students and how?

     I feel like this is the big question on my cohort's mind this week. Well, the short answer is yes, I would share this book with my students. I don't the censorship of texts, especially famous one that have been proven time and time again to have substantial value through a variety of different lenses. This one in particular does raise some interesting questions, and it does have it's fair share of what some would deem inappropriate material. Even Dr. Styslinger edited herself when reading out loud to our graduate level class. Perhaps there is a happy medium where the major themes and important messages can be taught without incorrectly analyzing the antiquated racist or explicit lines? Is that going against my views regarding censorship? Should this book simply be made available to students, or be required readings? These are the important questions to ask yourself when considering Huxley. 

     The thing that most parents, and people find problematic is it's decision to topple sexual matters. Yes, Huxley acknowledges sex. Yes, he writes in condom belt. Yes, there are talks of orgies. The book is ultimately a dystopian novel where a totalitarian government does their best to eliminate free will and choice by drugging the population with Soma, pleasure, and conditioned behavioral responses. When choosing whether or not to teach it--that's important to acknowledge. This isn't a manifesto on how to get young kids to deviate from their parents chosen path and get pregnant.

     Brave New World is a ingeniously crafted science fiction critique about our ways of life. While the novel contains a majority of warnings for readers, I believe that there are a lot of interesting grey areas that students could really find some value in having discussions over. One that would probably be a best suited for the most mature of classes is the discussion about how Huxley's universe doesn't shame or hide sexuality, while by and large, ours does. In the second or third chapter there is mention of the old ways in which most adolescents didn't sexually experiment until roughly twenty years of age, where new Central London starts them out of the womb acknowledging that stimulus. 

     I can't wait to consider this as a classroom text after my first year of teaching.

Rating: Classic/5

I found it online!: http://www.huxley.net/bnw/one.html